ACKNOWLEDGEMENT At the first, I would like to thank all those people who made this thesis possible and an unforgettable experience for my studying. Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Ngo Viet Liem, for his intensive support, valuable suggestions, instructions and encouragement during the time of doing my research. His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis.
Besides my supervisor, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Prof. Nguyen Dong Phong, Prof. Nguyen Dinh Tho, and Dr. Tran Ha Minh Quan … for their encouragement, insightful comments, and hard questions.
I thank my classmates in ISB MBUS 2011 (specially members in my group: Ms. Chuong and Ms. Hien) and my colleagues at Shinhan Bank for their encouraging and supporting to me complete this thesis. Besides that, my sincere thanks are given to all of my teachers at International Business School – University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during my MBUS course.
Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family. I must express my gratitude to Phan Thi Hoi, my older sister, for her continued support and encouragement. I also wish thank all those people who spent through their time and generous support made this thesis project. Ho Chi Minh City, October, 2014 PHAN DANH HOANG 1 123doc ABSTRACT This study integrates bank choice behavior and customer participation into a theoretical framework to explain variation in customer loyalty.
Specifically, the purpose of this study is twofold: (a) to examine the extent to which attributes of bank choice behavior (e. search, experience and credence) influence customer loyalty; (b) and through which mechanism customer participation influence the relationships between attributes of bank choice behavior and customer loyalty. The empirical setting of this study is the retail banking sector. A survey of 466 customers using personal loan services in some domestic banks is conducted.
The findings indicate that bank choice behavior and customer participation play important role in predicting the loyal of customer who use personal loan services. The results also support that customer participation is biggest impact to customer loyalty, followed by credence attributes and experience attributes. Whereby, the banking managers need to consider creating all of experience attributes, credence attributes and customer participation to make their customer loyalty to the bank. The research results are limited in the power of measurement scale, sampling approach as well as the fitness of the research model and data.
It results in the valuable directions for further researches in future. Keywords Retail banking, personal loan, bank choice behavior, customer participation, customer loyalty. 2 123doc TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS .1 Background to the research .2 Statement of the problem .4 Significance of the Study .5 Research scope and delimitation .6 Organization of the thesis.
11 THEORETICAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESES .1 Bank choice behavior .4 Research model and hypotheses development. 16 Building upon prior research, Figure 2.2 integrates the focal constructs of the thesis with hypothesized relationships.1 Bank choice behavior and customer loyalty .2 Bank choice behavior and customer participation .3 Customer participation and customer loyalty. Development of questionnaire. Measure of search, experience and credence.
Measure of customer participation. Measure of customer loyalty. Data analysis methods. 32 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS.
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Confirmatory Factor Analysis .1 Composite reliability and variance extracted .3 Convergent validity analysis .4 Discriminant validity analysis. Research model test. Theoretical model test by using SEM approach.
Theoretical model estimation by BOOTSTRAP. 48 DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATION. Implications of the research. Limitations and directions for further research.
61 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 - Questionnaire. 61 APPENDIX 2 - The results of population census 2009 in Ho Chi Minh City. 67 APPENDIX 3 - The result of EFA analysis – Eigenvalues for variables (the first test). 67 APPENDIX 4 - CFA test result.
72 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 - Totally disaggregated second-order model of bank choice behavior .2 - The proposed research model with hypotheses .1 - CFA result in the second time (Standardized estimates).2 - Result of hypothesis test in the second time.3 - The result of CFA in the first time (Standardized). 72 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 - Measurement scales of bank choice behavior .2 - Measurement scales of customer participation .3 - Measurement scales of customer loyalty .4 - calculating sample with quota sampling method .1 - Descriptive statistic of respondent’s characteristics .2 - Descriptive statistic of respondent’s characteristics .3 - Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient.4 - Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for each measurement scale .5 - The EFA analysis result .6 - Cronbach’ Alpha results after excluding unsatisfactory items .9 - Discriminant validity of concept .12 - The results for Bootstrap estimation. 47 6 123doc CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the research The Vietnamese banking sector is transforming at a rapid pace and is expected to show a higher growth rate than most of its counterparts in neighboring Asian countries in the upcoming years (Ho and Baxter, 2011). This tendency has been mainly shaped by state-headed economic reconstructions since the end of the 1980s and the creation of several State-Owned Commercial Banks (SOCB).
It has accelerated recently with the country’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2007, heading to a dynamic liberalization of the banking sector. These reforms and the tremendous economic development of the country during the last two decades (Breu and Dobbs, 2012) are making important chances for both national and foreign banks operating in Vietnam, mainly in retail banking sector. Since early 2014, although interest rates for enterprises were fall down in the lowest level since the stimulus package in 2009 of Government, but the credit growth is still difficult to increase. Many enterprises still hesitate to get loans.
So many banks shift their emphasis to personal loans services to grow credit outstanding balance. In particular, personal loan services attracted attention from many individual customers by simple and convenient procedures. The success of retail banking sector depends on the type of relationship maintained with its customer and an understanding of customer needs. In the commercial banking industry there is a growing recognition that individual customers not only represent a viable market segment but that their needs are different and frequently changed.
One strategic tool that banks can use to attract new customers, retain current customers and develop strong relationships is the customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is one of key concerns for researchers and marketers who are interested in understanding its predictors and causal structure. Previous research on this concept also showed that customer participation leading to loyalty (Auh, Bell, McLeod& Shih, 2007; Ngo &O'Cass, 2013). It gives the notion that customer participation is very important concept for marketers and managers.
7 123doc Besides the customer loyalty, bank choice behavior attributes (search, experience, credence) also attract many of researchers (Mitra, Reiss, and Capella, 1999; Babakus, Eroglu&Yavas (2004). However, few empirical studies investigate the relationship between bank choice behavior contributes, customer participation and customer loyalty. This study therefore develops a model examining the role of bank choice behavior, customer participation on customer loyalty. Empirically, it tests the impact of bank choice behavior attributes on customer participation.
Then, it investigates the impact of bank choice behavior contributes and customer participation on customer loyalty. Following this introduction, the next section presents statement of the problem.2 Statement of the problem The demand for personal loan products has been increasing dramatically. However, banks still do not have an optimal recipe for attracting new customers, retaining and selling more services to existing customers. A study on the effects of bank choice behavior and customer participation on customer loyalty will allow bank managers to have an appropriate marketing strategy to attract new customers.
It can help bank managers give out methods which help to increases the level of customer loyalty, thereby maintaining the existing customers. Through studying the relationship between customer participation and customer loyalty, it also allows bank managers find out ways to strengthen the participation of the customer in the transaction process through which banks can increase the level of customer loyalty.3 Research questions The purpose of this research is to empirically investigate the impact of bank choice behavior and customer participation on customer loyalty. The empirical setting in this particular research is the retail banking sector in the transitional economy in Vietnam. Contrary to the past, many customers are trying to use personal banking services and have a lot of products to choose.
Given this situation, a study of bank choice behavior, customer 8 123doc participation and customer loyalty would be very useful. This study attempts to answer the following research questions. To what extent, do attributes of bank choice behavior (e. search, experience and credence) and customer participation influence customer loyalty? Between bank choice behavior and customer participation, which factor will most influence to customer loyalty? 1.4 Significance of the Study This study has important implications for both practitioners (leaders of commercial banks, marketing managers) and academic (researchers, students of the business administration department) as follow: The findings of this study contribute to research on bank choice behavior and customer participation by investigating the contribution of both bank choice behavior and customer participation to enhancing customer loyalty.
Based on it, managers of commercial banks will make an effective strategy to enhance customer loyalty and improve operational efficiency. Marketing managers will consider the factors of bank choice behavior which affect customer loyalty in personal loan market sector to set up an appropriate communicate strategy. The results of this study also are a basis for researchers, students for developing further research to practical applications.5 Research scope and delimitation This study is conducted in Ho Chi Minh City, one of the biggest economic centers of Viet Nam. Respondents are customers who are using personal loan services at banks.
Due to limited time and cost, the research surveyed about 500 customers of large domestic commercial banks in HCMC. The result of research in this city, in some level can represent for Viet Nam in general and can be use as reference for further purposes. 9 123doc The research will assess the effect of bank choice behavior attributes and customer participation to customer loyalty. In this, the quota sampling method is used to collect research data.
It is a type of the non-probability sampling. Althought selected-sample is not generalized to population, if we choose the right controlled characteristic (distinguishing attributes of studied objects), in theoretically, sample cannot represent for population but in practice it may represent for population.6 Organization of the thesis This thesis is organized in five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction that describes the overview of research background, research problem, and objective, followed by the scope of research, implications, and structure of thesis. Chapter 2 reviews previous research on customer loyalty and customer participation.
Specifically, the chapter reviews the mediating role of customer participation model and theory of bank choice behavior and, how they are used in various contexts. This chapter concentrates on explaining each variable in the model, and reasons for choosing them to be included in the research model. Chapter 3 introduces research methodology used to validate the research model in previous session. It presents the research design, development of survey questionnaire, qualitative study, and main survey.
This chapter also presents how to collect data and analyze the data collected to test the research hypotheses proposed in chapter 2. Chapter 4 analyses data as well as discusses the result finding in connection with research model. This chapter explains the empirical part of the study. This part discusses the analyses of the data received, psychometric properties of focal constructs, and hypothesis testing.
The last chapter, chapter 5 discusses implications and research limitations. Finally, this thesis makes suggestions for further research on the topic area. References and appendixes are included in the end of thesis.